Samahen Armor

And from your enemies your only shield shall be blood, and in it you shall thrive.
-Passage from the Samahhi

Before you is a cuirass made of clay and mail. The breast, back, and pauldrons are made of a pinkish, pitted clay, with streaks of what can only be blood running down them. Along the sides, and holding the armor together is half-rusted chain mail, the kind that comes when you get blood on steel and let it sit. Its appearance belies how effective it is in battle, stopping even the club of an ogre with little more than a crack.

This is the armor that has allowed the Samahen armies to conquer your homeland, and the homes of many before you. And yet as you deal it and the corpse it covers a swift blow, the armor cracks and beneath another blow you see through to the steel wiring that helps to hold the armor together. Just like when your brother tried wearing it into battle and it shattered beneath the first sword blow of the opposing armies.

The foreign priests say that their god would never help heathens, and that’s why the armor failed when he needed it. Only his children are protected by the blood of sinners spilt, and only the Hithich know the prayers that draw his singular gaze to their aid. But even now, as you sit there toying with the wires you know that his gaze will only show them his blind eye, and you only hope to be there when it does.

But soon the guards come for you again, their morning prayers over. They laugh at you and say that soon enough you’ll be seeing more armor than you’d ever wished. They say that you’re going to be making armor and breaking your back in a quarry. You ignore them and start walking, their armor protects them for now.

The Facts as I Know ThemorDisambiguation

1. The armor is made out of clay, and when I pictured it in my head I thought of it as being wetted (if that’s the right term) with the blood of either dead prisoners at the ‘prison’ or from sacrifical animals.

2. Before a big battle the squad priest would sacrific a small animal, or if one was avalible, a heathen. The blood would then be sprinkled over the armor and warriors. (You didn’t hear this from me, but I think that their god is infact a demon; but don’t quote me on that.) This is what I’ve come up with so far.

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On the one side I like the setting. It gives a nice dark tone to something bigger. Something far more devious than what is on the surface. Yet on the other side, I find that there just doesn't seem to be enough information about the armor.

Don't get me wrong it is a great idea. The armor of my god protects those who are worthy kind of thing, awesome. An infidel wearing it will find no protection in it. Great! But it is lacking something for me.

Interesting...ferro-ceramic armor. But I also see it as a living armor, a sort of talisman or magical item that only works for the attuned wearer. This could require regular bonding/cleaning rituals to maintain the ceramic plates, or rituals of blood on the armor, whatever.

The Samahen seem to be some pretty interesting folk, pretty crafty though only the name's resemblence to Samhain makes me think of dark and gloomy. With common ceramics, i would expect them to be from a hot and sun drenched place.

Hithich = Religous soldier. It's a common description of anyone in their armies, with higher racks adding a suffix onto the end.

And Cheka, you're going to hate me for this, but right now all I can think of is their god makes it work. I'm writing up the riligion right now, and that might help me understand. This is one of those things that I'm going to work a bit more on. Wait a couple of days to vote and I'll add a little blurb in it on how this works.

Wow seems like a great idea to me! I like the idea of the blood ritual, and I could see it as some religious thing. Something that ties the armor to the person, of course it would involve rubbing and leaving some of the soldiers blood on the armor to "feed" it.

Even non-believers might be able to obtain the benifits if they scrub the armor free of the older users blood (being careful as the armor looses its magic and becomes fragile at this point). They would then commence the ritual, and substitute their own blood.

Can't ask why it wouldn't work, for there are immediately several options springing into my mind. One is (besides the officially spread the blessing of a god) ritual magic - the Samahhi have by accident discovered a ritual that makes an armor close to indestructible, for a time of course. No wonder those soldiers are fervent believers - it makes them undefeatable (well, of course not, but you get the idea) - and it is good to have such a god.

As a side note, it seems the armor itself (when not 'enchanted' or not worn by the person that enchanted it) is fairly weak, which I find an interesting twist. Cool idea, Pariah.

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I have heard (from an Afghan man that I know) that in Afghanistan, they will construct kites, and then tie or tape pieces of glass and shards of pottery to the kite-strings and have "kite-battles", where they try to use the sharp shards on their kite-strings to cut the opponent's strings.